Fire-prone Australia relies on mostly unpaid, local brigades to defend against disaster. Canada could look to them for lessons as climate change heats up
. Of 82,480 emergency services personnel to respond, 64,500, or 78 per cent, were volunteers.
Fire service leaders offer a number of reasons as to why this may be. An aging population, coupled with younger people gravitating toward urban centres, is one. The Productivity Commission’s figures show that the number of paid, career firefighters grew 27 per cent to 15,157 over the same period, adding weight to the theory that urbanization is at least partly to blame. Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic also had a significant impact on work force numbers, including on volunteerism.
“Up until then, all volunteer organizations, including volunteer fire services, had a legal obligation to provide a safe work environment, and that was the extent of it,” Mr. Heffernan said. “We never had to make sure we had robust risk assessments, training programs, PPC, checks and balances. … What it meant was that we can’t just have any Tom, Dick and Harry [fighting fires].”
“It’s about trying to enhance their lives, based on the fact that they’re giving up something for the service,” she said. Ian Price, 83, watches a planned burn from the back of a truck near Ararat. Like many in the volunteer brigades, he says he has been a member all his life. A second stream will focus on ranchers, loggers and other rural community members who have already self-organized, or are willing to. The wildfire service has already met with the BC Cattlemen’s Association, as the ranching sector is expected to play a big role. In 2021, the groups trialled a joint “rancher liaison” program, with the goal of improving the flow of information between BCWS and ranchers in wildfire zones.
“To be honest, that’s what’s gotten in the way for years,” he said. “But, for years, we were able to go about it on our own as an agency and do what we needed to do to suppress the fire. Now, we’re trying to figure out this hybrid model.”Another group that the wildfire service has already been in contact with is the Chinook Emergency Response Society.
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